The freedom of imagination in creating new worlds and new deities, in which the authors of this literature indulged, would naturally lead to incongruities. Newly-invented worlds would be located in regions already appropriated by previous writers. In the Fa-hwa-king, a circle of eight worlds, with two Buddhas to each, is described.

[paragraph continues] Amitabha and Ach'obhya occur in the west and east respectively, the account agreeing in this respect with that in the Amitabha Sutra, but the other names do not harmonise; so that in several cases new Buddhas are imagined in regions preoccupied by those created at an earlier date.

Accounts of many more of these fancied worlds might be collected from other works. For example, in the Pei-hwa-king, one in the south-east with its Buddha, is described with minuteness.

The symbolical character of this mythology is seen very clearly in the attributes of the Bodhisattwas, who play in it such an important part, and who are the objects of such extended popular worship in the Buddhist countries of the North. In Kwan-yin, mercy is symbolised; wisdom, in Wen-shu; and happiness, in P'u-hien. To the philosophic Buddhists, these personages, with Amitabha, Yo-shi Fo and the others are nothing but signs of ideas. The uninstructed Buddhists believe in their real existence, but all the evidence goes to show that they were invented by the former class of Buddhists, and palmed upon the people by them as real beings proper to be worshipped.

A near parallel to this is the setting up of the image of Reason to be popularly adored, by the atheists of the first French revolution. If, as some think, the pantheism of Germany will, according to the common law of progress in human perversity, result in polytheism, we have here an example of the way in which such a new idolatry will possibly be introduced.

I append here some further account of Manjusiri, the Bodhisattwa honoured at Wu-t'ai shah in North China.

These notices will also show how in the expansion of the mythology which we meet with in the Sutras of the Great Development, even China is made one of the countries, and Wu-t'ai one of the mountains, where Buddha delivered discourses.

We learn from the Mongol account of Wu-t'ai, that

[paragraph continues] Manjusiri is addressed in prayer as the enlightener of the world. His wisdom is perfect, and is symbolised by the sword he holds in his right hand; because his intellect pierces the deepest recesses of Buddhist thought, and cuts knots which cannot otherwise be solved.

He is also represented as holding in his hand a volume of Buddha's teaching, of which a flower is the symbol. He is styled also the lamp of wisdom and of supernatural power.